Defending Constantine

October 11, 2010
Leithart (Deep Exegesis), a pastor who teaches at New St. Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, takes aim at the received wisdom that Constantine's establishment of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire was a political co-optation that made the church the creature and justification of the imperial state. He reads the original ancient, the seminal secondary, and lots of other sources to contend that Constantine was a believer and a conciliator who sought theological agreement for the political stability it brought. Contra the influential interpretation of Anabaptist theologian John Howard Yoder, Leithart maintains that when Constantine is understood in historical context, his disestablishment of pagan religion opens a place for a Christian understanding of sacrifice and of the significance of the kingdom of God. His provocative view deserves examination. Besides his peers, general readers with a close knowledge of early church history will appreciate his well-supported argument, and anybody whose understanding of early church history comes from The Da Vinci Code needs to read this.

December 1, 2010

In this historically informed piece of political theology, Leithart (copastor, Trinity Reformed Church, Moscow, ID; The Four: A Survey of the Gospels) comes to the aid of Constantine, one of the more infamous whipping boys in church history. The first Christian emperor is often a stand-in for tyranny, hypocrisy, heresy, or worse. Against this long-standing tradition, with a particular focus on the late theologian John Howard Yoder's work, Leithart argues that Constantine presents a workable model for Christian political practice. Rome newly baptized may have been in its infancy, but its faith wasn't infantile, and thus invalid, as Yoder claimed. In the end, regardless of whether one agrees with Leithart's own political theology, he deserves credit for placing the theological conversation about "Constantinian" Christianity on firmer historical footing. VERDICT Aimed at readers more familiar with historian Peter Brown, notable biographer of St. Augustine, than Dan Brown, this erudite work will be of interest to academic seminarians and theologians, as well as those seeking a historically sound Christian interpretation of Constantine. Those interested in history alone, however, would be better served by one of Leithart's own preferred sources, Timothy D. Barnes's Constantine and Eusebius.--Matthew Connor Sullivan, Hallowell, ME

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